Faxian

Faxian
Statue of Faxian, Singapore
Personal
Born	337 Pingyang Wuyang (平陽武陽), in modern Linfen City, Shanxi
Died	ca. 422 (aged 85)
Religion	Buddhism
Parent	Tsang Hi
Notable work(s)	Foguoji (A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms)

Faxian (Chinese: 法顯; 337 – c. 422) was a Chinese Buddhist monk and translator who traveled by foot from China to India between 399-412, in order to acquire Buddhist texts.

Starting his journey about age 60, he traveled west along the overland Silk Road, visiting Buddhist sites in Central, South, and Southeast Asia. The journey and return took from 399 to 412, with 10 years spent in India.

Faxian's account of his pilgrimage, the Record of the Buddhist Kingdoms (C. Foguoji), is a notable independent record of early Buddhism in India. He returned to China with a large number of Sanskrit texts, whose translations greatly influenced East Asian Buddhism and provide a terminus ante quem for many historical names, events, texts, and ideas therein.

Biography

Faxian at Daishō-in Temple, Miyajima, Japan

Faxian at the ruins of Ashoka palace

Faxian's route through India, from Beal's edition

Faxian was born in Shanxi in the 4th-century under the Later Zhao dynasty of the Sixteen Kingdoms period. The name Faxian means "Splendor of Dharma". Three of his elder brothers died young. His father, fearing that the same fate would befall him, had him ordained as a novice monk at the age of three.

In 399 CE, about age 60, Faxian was among the earliest attested pilgrims to India. He set out from Chang'an, the capital of the Buddhist Later Qin dynasty, along with four others to locate sacred Buddhist texts and was later joined by five more pilgrims at Zhangye. He visited India in the early fifth century. He is said to have walked all the way from China across the icy desert and rugged mountain passes. He entered India from the northwest and reached Pataliputra. He took back with him a large number of Sanskrit Buddhist texts and images sacred to Buddhism. Upon his return to China, he is also credited with translating these Sanskrit texts into Chinese.

Faxian's visit to India occurred during the reign of Chandragupta II. He entered the Indian subcontinent through the northwest. His memoirs describe his 10 years stay in India. He visited the major sites associated with the Buddha, as well the renowned centres of education and Buddhist monasteries. He visited Kapilvastu (Lumbini), Bodh Gaya, Benares (Varanasi), Shravasti, and Kushinagar, all linked to events in Buddha's life. Faxian learned Sanskrit, and collected Indian literature from Pataliputra (Patna), Oddiyana, and Taxila in Gandhara. His memoirs mention the Hinayana and emerging Mahayana traditions, as well as the splintering and dissenting Theravada sub-traditions in 5th-century Indian Buddhism. Before he had begun his journey back to China, he had amassed a large number of Sanskrit texts of his times.

On Faxian's way back to China, after a two-year stay in Sri Lanka, a violent storm drove his ship onto an island, probably Java. After five months there, Faxian took another ship for southern China, but again it was blown off course and he ended up landing at Mount Lao in what is now Shandong in northern China, 30 kilometres (19 mi) east of the city of Qingdao. He spent the rest of his life translating and editing the scriptures he had collected. These were influential to the history of Chinese Buddhism that followed.

Faxian returned in 412 and settled in what is now Nanjing. He wrote a book on his travels around the year 414, filled with accounts of early Buddhism and the geography and history of numerous countries along the Silk Road as they were at the turn of the 5th century CE. He spent the next decade until his death translating the Buddhist sutras he had brought with him from India.

Works

Faxian's major work is his account of his travels, most commonly known as:

• Faxian zhuan, “The Record of Faxian,” or,
• Foguoji, "Record of Buddhist Countries"

He also translated many Sanskrit texts he brought back with him to China. These translations are an important means to date texts, named individuals, and Buddhist traditions. They provide a terminus ante quem for many historical names, manuscripts, events, and ideas mentioned.

See also

• Chinese Buddhism
• Hyecho
• Silk Road
• Xuanzang
• Yijing

Bibliography

• "Faxian", Britannica, 2019 .
• Beal, Samuel, ed. (1869), "Records of Buddhist Countries by Chi Fah Hian of the Sung Dynasty", Travels of Fah-Hian and Sung-Yun, Buddhist Pilgrims, from China to India (400 A.D. and 518 A.D.), London: Trübner & Co., pp. 1–174 .
• Deeg, Max (2019), "Chinese Buddhist Travelers: Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing", Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.217, ISBN 978-0-19-027772-7 .
• Průšek, Jaroslav; et al. (1978), Dictionary of Oriental Literatures: East Asia, Charles Tuttle .
• Sen, Tansen (2006), "The Travel Records of Chinese Pilgrims Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing" (PDF), Education About Asia, 11 (3), pp. 24–33, archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-07-13, retrieved 2014-07-13  .
• Shi Huijiao; et al. (2022), The Biographies of Eminent Monks 高僧傳, Hong Kong: Centre of Buddhist Studies at the University of Hong Kong .
• Weerawardane, Prasani (2009). Journey to the West: Dusty Roads, Stormy Seas and Transcendence, biblioasia 5 (2), 14-18
• Jain, Sandhya, & Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

External links

• Faxian, Wikipedia
• Extracts from James Legge's translation
• Original Chinese text, Taisho 2085
• Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms (Complete HTML at web.archive.org), University of Adelaide